


I Don't Eat Vampires

by SmallFlowers



Series: spookyverse [1]
Category: NCT (Band)
Genre: Attempt at humour, Blood, Death, Demons, Fluff, Ghosts, M/M, Vampires, Witch!Donghyuck, Witches, chenle catgenda, demon!chenle, ghost!renjun, halloween fic, human!jisung, i think im funny, please think im funny i need validation, uuhhhh this was meant to be scary but it ended up being fluff uhhh
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-31
Updated: 2020-10-31
Packaged: 2021-03-08 21:15:47
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,183
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27303265
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SmallFlowers/pseuds/SmallFlowers
Summary: Jisung buys a lamp at a thrift store, and it's somehow the best decision he's ever made.
Relationships: Park Jisung/Zhong Chen Le
Series: spookyverse [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1994566
Comments: 13
Kudos: 99





	I Don't Eat Vampires

**Author's Note:**

> should probably warn that there's a tiny bit of homophobia mentioned !!

There’s something living under Jisung’s bed.

It meows when it’s hungry, snores when it sleeps, and hisses whenever Jisung tries to lure it out.

He doesn’t know what it is - he’s never actually seen it apart from when he’d bought the lamp from the thrift store a month ago, a pretty little thing that was meant for his school’s Aladdin production. He didn’t really know what he’d expected to come flying out of it when he opened the lid in the confines of his bedroom, but it was definitely not a blur of black smoke that immediately found its place underneath the darkness of his bed and almond-eyes that blink red. 

He would think the _something_ is a cat, but a cat wouldn’t be able to fit themselves inside a lamp ten centimetres in diameter. There was the whole turning into black smoke thing too. 

It can eat human food, Jisung has gathered. He’s been feeding it twinkies that his mother makes him take to school to eat during recess. He’s tried giving it his sandwich, but it didn’t seem to like the lettuce very much if the growl it released as the sad leaf was thrown back at him was any indication.

So twinkies and no lettuce it is.

He finds himself talking to it a lot more often than he probably should. He asks about it’s day, asks about what it is, asks about if it has a family it has to return to. He asks and asks and asks, and the silence he receives is either a sign that one, it doesn’t understand what he’s asking, two, it doesn’t want to talk to him, or three, both. 

Jisung hopes it’s the first option.

It doesn’t stop him from talking to it, though, and by talking - he means _complaining._

He complains about his maths homework (despite polynomials being the most fun he’s had in the class since the beginning of the year). He complains about the unfairness in which his friends are graduating in two months. He even complains about the colour mustard and how it should never have been created.

So it’s no surprise that he also finds himself complaining about how much of a homophobic _dick_ the captain of the school’s soccer team is, how he’d pressured the rest of the team into saying slurs that he doesn’t know the full harm of. His complaining turns to fear at one point - fear of getting outted, fear of getting kicked off the team for being gay, fear of losing his friends. 

He’s too caught up in his fear - looking down at his fists clenched on his knees with blurry vision that he doesn’t even notice the black wisps coming out from under his bed. He doesn’t notice it gather in volume, solidifying into a pale boy with raven black hair until he feels a warm hand on his cheek as it wipes his tears away. He hadn’t even realised that he’d started crying either.

“He hurt you?” The boy asks. He wears a black cloak that covers him head to toe. His voice and eyes are warm, but there’s a tone in them that feels dangerous, something he should be fearful of. He doesn’t know why he isn’t.

Jisung sniffles as he nods, and the boy’s eyes harden, a sharpness that his mind screams at him to stay away from as they burn red. The warmth is gone when he speaks, replaced by a coldness that Jisung shivers to, firm and final, “I’ll kill him.”

And then the boy is gone and all that’s left are wisps of black smoke.

# ❀❀❀

Jisung feels a bit in daze, like he’s in a dream, because how could the boy that disappeared an hour ago be back covered in blood? 

The boy is looking at himself in the mirror, spinning around to see the stains on his cloak, as if admiring the splatters of dark red. There’s a streak of red along his cheek that he swipes at with a finger, causing it to smear a little. He smiles when he studies it, fangs glowing a little before he licks it clean.

“Are you a vampire?” Jisung asks. He scrunches his nose from the smell of iron filling his room, yet that is all he really feels - a slight discomfort. His heart doesn’t speed up with panic, or with fear of the unknown, but remains steady, beating rhythmically normal as air comes easy to him.

The boy’s face twists into distaste, as if offended, “I’m a demon.”

“Do you have a name?”

The boy- _demon_ glances off to the side for a slight moment in an uncharacteristic sign of hesitance, “Chenle.”

“Chenle?” He repeats, testing the new syllables on his tongue. 

“Yeah.”

It’s a nice name.

# ❀❀❀

In the next month that passes, Jisung learns that Chenle can transform into a black cat and a puma (although he has yet to see the latter). He learns that yes, he did actually eat the soccer team’s captain because twinkies were not enough to sustain him (oh), and that no, he doesn’t actually need to eat people to survive (thankfully). 

He also learns that Chenle was trapped inside the lamp because he had angered one of his friends, a witch named Donghyuck who summoned him to this world to be his familiar. After Jisung had released him (and after he’d eaten the soccer team’s captain), he’d visited the witch, who had promptly cried out an apology for losing the lamp. Chenle didn’t seem too interested in retelling the story though, more concerned with ruffling through Jisung’s closet and picking out a black hoodie and some grey sweatpants to change into.

One thing he doesn’t learn is why Chenle has decided to continue sleeping on Jisung’s bed in his cat form when he apparently has his own room in Donghyuck’s little witch hideout (cabin? Apartment? Chenle didn’t actually say what it was). The company is welcome - don’t get him wrong, but the amount of fur on his blankets is starting to build up, and he’s not exactly sure how he’s meant to explain this to his mother. Telling her _“hey, I made a demon friend who can turn into a cat. Can we keep him?”_ doesn’t sound quite right.

He asks Chenle about this, but the other merely shrugs, a small frown on his face as he looks up at him with sad eyes and says, “I can leave if you want me to.”

Jisung doesn’t mention it again.

# ❀❀❀

Another month later, Chenle gives him a necklace. Apparently Donghyuck had enchanted it with some magic shit that links them together, a device that lets them communicate their _feelings._

“For times of distress,” Chenle had told him.

Jisung doesn’t know what he means.

And then he gets attacked by a vampire on the way back from soccer practice. It’s honestly kinda his fault. 

The way back from school is full of twists and turns and alleyways, shrouded in shadows that Jisung should stay away from, but it’s a _shortcut,_ and even though it’s only five minutes faster than the safer route, it’s five minutes faster for him to see Chenle. 

See? He has his reasons.

So in one of these alleyways is Jisung pinned against one of the concrete slabs they call walls, the vampire’s fangs piercing his skin as he cries out from the pain. He’s scared, _terrified_ even, but also annoyed for getting into this situation to begin with.

It’s when he’s torn between these emotions, teetering more on the edge of sheer panic that the shadows of the tall buildings finally begin to gather in volume, the smell of smoke filling his lungs as it forms into a black puma. The vampire doesn’t pay it any mind, continuing to drink from Jisung’s shoulder, even when a threatening growl echoes across the walls.

The events that happen next are mostly a blur to Jisung, one full of more red and sharp teeth as the puma rips the vampire’s body apart, the necklace hanging around Jisung’s neck burning with anger and a thirst for blood. His hands shake as they clutch at the fresh wound on his shoulder. 

By the time the puma is done with the vampire (or at least what’s left of it), Jisung’s eyes blink blearily as he watches the puma become enveloped in black smoke before Chenle’s familiar face appears, a dark cut of red down the side of his cheek.

“My hero,” Jisung manages to say sluggishly, wincing when Chenle removes his hands from his shoulder. He can’t really make out the expression on his face, but the glowing red eyes and the heat of the necklace tell him all he needs to know before his world becomes enveloped in darkness.

# ❀❀❀

The first thing Jisung notices when he wakes up is the smell of something burning.

And the screaming.

“Fucking _shit!”_

“Hyuck, can’t you do your _magic shit_ or _something?!”_

_“That’s what I’m trying to do!”_

Jisung groans as he sits up, noting the stiffness of the bandaid placed neatly on his shoulder as he takes in his surroundings. He’s laying on a single bed next to the wall, much like his own room, except instead of a full length mirror is a rack full of hoodies and sweatpants that look suspiciously like the ones Jisung owns.

“Oh, you’re up,” a voice says, but when he turns his head to face the direction of the sound, he’s only greeted by an empty space.

“Uh,” Jisung says as he looks around, his eyebrows drawing together as he tries to work out where the voice is coming from in the emptiness of the room.

The owner of the voice makes a sound of realisation as Jisung continues his confusion, and then there’s suddenly a boy probably a few years older than him standing by the rack of clothes, a grin on his face as he tilts his head, “I’m Renjun.”

“I’m Jisung?”

“I’m aware,” Renjun nods, a glint in his eye that Jisung doesn’t quite know what to make of, “Chenle talks about you all the time. Donghyuck had a real trip making those necklaces for you guys to shut him up.”

Jisung subconsciously brings a hand up to clutch at the said accessory, the jewel a calming reassurance in the space of unfamiliarity. He takes a breath as he identifies the subtle panic and frustration underneath the overwhelming relief flowing through the device.

Renjun eyes the bandaid on his shoulder, “It’s a good thing he did too.”

“Jisung!” Chenle bursts through the doors, eyes wide and hair a mess as he walks straight _through_ Renjun, making his way to sit next to Jisung at the top of the bed, “I wanted to come here straight after you woke up, but we were in the middle of taming a fire and I couldn’t just leave Donghyuck to deal with it himself.”

“You were in the middle of what?” Jisung asks, stunned, “And you just walked straight through Renjun?”

“I’m dead!” Renjun beams out an explanation, sticking an arm through Chenle as if to prove a point.

Chenle gives an affirming nod, not even blinking at the arm through his chest, “Donghyuck doesn’t have great control over fires yet so he thought it would be a great idea to practice, but then it got a bit out of hand.”

“So we’re at Donghyuck’s place? Is this your room?” he points to the rack, “And are those my clothes?”

“Yep,” Chenle unwraps Jisung’s hand from the necklace and holds onto it, “Donghyuck cleaned your wound and stuff. He also went back and collected the body parts so he could experiment on them.”

“You didn’t eat the vampire?”

“Nah,” Chenle shakes his head with a little grimace, his voice is tense, “Vampires taste like shit.”

Jisung hums and looks down at their interlocked hands, they don’t fit perfectly together, but it feels nice. _Really nice._ He could get used to this.

Renjun clears his throat, “So, I’m gonna leave you guys to like… talk and stuff. Yep, bye!”

Jisung blinks as he vanishes, and then looks at Chenle as the feelings of fear clutch at his chest.

“What’s wrong?”

“You’re going to ask me _what’s wrong?”_ Chenle asks back with frustration, “Jisung, you nearly died!”

“But I didn’t,” Jisung looks back down at their hands, only feeling marginally guilty for making him worry.

“But you nearly did! What would you have done if Donghyuck didn’t make us the necklaces?” 

Jisung _knows_ he’s being stupid, but despite almost dying, he can’t help but answer, “You would’ve saved me anyway.”

“But what if I hadn’t?” Chenle looks _mad,_ but he can’t hide the emotions that are being sent through - the fear, the worry, the insecurity.

“You would’ve,” Jisung says again. His voice is firm, confident, and he fully believes the words he speaks, “I know you would’ve.”

Chenle sighs, and Jisung holds his hand tighter. 

“I was so scared when I felt the pain,” Chenle whispers, “I didn’t know where you were so I was going to come here for a tracking spell, but then I saw the vampire and _you_ and- and I was so angry.”

“I’m okay now,” Jisung smiles, “You saved me.”

Chenle glares at the bandaged wound, his eyes starting to glow red, “I should’ve found you before the bite. I hate vampires - they have no sense of respect.”

Jisung tilts his head, his eyes softening as he brushes Chenle’s fringe out of his eyes with his free hand to distract him from another bloodthirsty rampage. “Can we talk about something else?”

“Sorry,” Chenle shakes his head as his eyes return to the familiar dark brown, a tired smile on his face, “You should meet Donghyuck.”

# ❀❀❀

Jisung has imagined meeting Donghyuck before, his mind conjuring scenes of a person shrouded in darkness standing above a cauldron as its contents bubbled with puffs of smoke overflowing from it like dry ice.

What he didn’t expect was for the witch to be wearing a pair of sunglasses despite being indoors, the frames the shape of sunflowers, adorning a shirt in the same warm yellow shade and a pair of ripped blue jeans. He also didn’t expect the witch to be hovering above the kitchen stove holding some five dollar looking pot muttering curse words as he stirred its contents with a mint green silicone spoon.

The kitchen is in an open area connected to what Jisung thinks is the living room, a couch and a tv against one wall as a pile of body parts lay in another corner of the relatively small space, surrounded by a translucent barrier. There’s also a giant scorch mark on the wall above it, from what Jisung assumes is the fire incident from earlier.

He momentarily thinks that he’s dreaming.

“He’s a real sight, isn’t he?” Renjun whispers to him out of nowhere, causing him to startle and wack his hand on the kitchen counter, the pain blossoming as he lets out a tiny _“ow”._

So it’s probably real.

“Why is he wearing sunglasses?” Jisung whispers back when he overcomes the pain.

“Cover your eyes,” Chenle answers instead.

Before Jisung can do so, the pot emits a blinding light, and Jisung groans as it disorientates him for a moment, his stumbling halted by Chenle’s firm grip around his arm. The commotion causes Donghyuck to lift his head from the pot, a bright smile on his face as he welcomes Jisung to his _“humble abode”,_ some run-down apartment targeted towards college students.

“It’s nearly done,” Donghyuck turns back to the stove, humming a soft tune. “Chenle, grab the mug.”

“Which mug?”

“We only _have_ one mug,” Donghyuck deadpans.

“It was a test,” Chenle shrugs as he grabs the said mug - another sunflower printed item. He’s starting to see a theme here. 

“This is my apartment,” Donghyuck says with a raised brow as he pours the dirty pink coloured contents into it, “I don’t think I need any testing on what goes on here.”

“You never know,” Renjun sings as he floats around the room on his back. He nods towards Jisung, “You should drink that before it gets cold.”

Jisung grabs the mug as Chenle passes it to him, swirling the liquid around as he gives it a sniff and scrunches his nose at the muddy smell before taking a sip and humming at the surprisingly sweet taste, “What is it?”

“Love potion,” Donghyuck explains straight-faced. Jisung coughs it out. Chenle wacks Donghyuck’s arm. _“Ow, okay,_ I’m just messing with you. It’s medicine for the bite - it’ll help you heal faster.”

Jisung nods once before chugging the rest of it, the warmth of the liquid tingling his chest. He feels himself grow lighter, like he’s in zero gravity, and looks at all of their amused faces with wide eyes, _“Woah.”_

“Nice, right?” Chenle smiles warmly.

“Yeah, _really nice,”_ Jisung answers. He could probably fly if he tried hard enough. He could probably swim in the fondness that his necklace bathes him in too.

Donghyuck gives Renjun a smug look, “Told you I could do it.”

Renjun answers with a roll of his eyes and continues floating around the apartment. 

“A’ight, well you should probably sit down,” Donghyuck directs Jisung to the couch, “Wouldn’t want you to go flying off somewhere.”

“I can fly?” Jisung asks with wonder in his eyes as he sinks into the couch. Chenle laughs as he takes the free space next to him, and another layer of fondness washes over him. He can’t tell if it’s his or the necklace. Maybe that actually _was_ a love potion, because although Chenle’s laugh has always made him feel things, he feels as though he’s being bathed in pink tones that amplifies his already existing emotions.

Chenle’s eyes widen a fraction before growing softer and giving a gentle smile as he holds onto his hand again, “You’re really high on the medicine, aren’t you?”

“I don’t know,” Jisung turns onto his side and rests his head onto the couch to look at Chenle better, staring up at the black hair that nearly covers his eyes, the shy shade of red on his cheeks and pointy ears. “Maybe.”

He feels a bit lost in these emotions, not even minding how Donghyuck has somehow set the kitchen on fire, doesn’t mind Renjun telling the witch, _“if you wanted to join me, you could have just said so”_ as Donghyuck scrambled to eliminate the flames. The smoke only serves as a reminder to how enthralled Jisung is with Chenle, the demon who can turn into a tiny black cat, who can turn into a not-so-tiny black puma, who evaporates into black smoke and travels through the shadows.

“You know how I feel, right?” Chenle asks, holding his hand tightly as they share a look of fondness.

“I know,” Jisung smiles, “I feel the same.”

Chenle sighs but it’s light, relaxed with soft eyes, warm like the first time he had seen him, only now filled with adoration. His fangs gleam as he grins, “I know.”

**Author's Note:**

> i was meant to get this up before 12am aest . i'm sure it's still halloween somewhere in the world. i hope this was able to bring a smile to your face one way or another!
> 
> you wanna leave kudos and comments soooo badddd
> 
> if interested:  
> [cc](https://curiouscat.qa/fIowerzens)  
> [twitter](https://twitter.com/flowerzens)


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